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  • The Holocaust Novel
  • David Patterson
The Holocaust Novel, by Efraim Sicher. New York and London: Routledge, 2005. 261 pp. $22.36.

The Holocaust Novel by Efraim Sicher is an excellent overview of the fundamentals for any basic study of the Holocaust novel. The book is thoroughly researched and well written. In his preface Sicher presents a good discussion of the generic question of whether the words Holocaust and novel can even be put together. Part of the Routledge series "Genres in Context," the book's primary concern is with the literary contexts of the Holocaust novel as a genre unto itself. And Sicher firmly situates his examination of the Holocaust novel within those contexts. He explains very well why such a genre is legitimate and what distinguishes it from other genres.

In Chapter 1, "About the Holocaust Novel," Sicher does a good job of distinguishing the Holocaust from other catastrophes. Here he provides the reader with a good overview of the classic American writers of Holocaust novels, [End Page 208] including Elie Wiesel, Jerzy Kosinski, Elbieta Ettinger, and Ilona Karmel. He adds Israeli authors, such as Ka-tzetnik 135633, Aharon Appelfeld, Haim Gouri, and Yoram Kaniuk. Next he covers German and Austrian writers, such as Jurek Becker, Ilse Aichinger, and Jakov Lind. Then there are the French writers, including André Schwarz-Bart, Anna Langfus, and Piotr Rawicz. Sicher also mentions novelists from other countries in his thorough overview of a long-standing body of Holocaust novels.

In the subsequent chapters of this book for beginners, Sicher focuses on specific authors in various categories of novels before ending with his excellent bibliographic essay and his essay on recommended reading. In Chapter 2 he offers good synopses of novels written by survivors. These include Night by Elie Wiesel, If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi, Badenheim 1939 by Aharon Appelfeld, and The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski.

In Chapter 3, titled "The American Post-Holocaust Novel," Sicher deftly explores the difficulties facing novelists who have nothing but their imagination to rely on. After presenting the reader with a concise and highly perceptive introduction to this general area of the genre, Sicher focuses on some of the classic examples of the American post-Holocaust novel. Authors and works explicated here include Edward Lewis Wallant's The Pawnbroker, Saul Bellow's Mr. Sammler's Planet, Susan Fromberg Schaeffer's Anya, and Cynthia Ozick's The Shawl.

In Chapter 4, "Holocaust Fictions, or Fictional Holocausts," Sicher examines the tension between history and fiction in several familiar Holocaust novels. Works that come under scrutiny here include William Styron's Sophie's Choice, Thomas Keneally's Schindler's List, and Anatoli Kuznetsov's Babi Yar. In this chapter Sicher expands on his generally descriptive approach to the Holocaust novel and delves deeper into an analysis of the difficulties and the implications of writing fiction about a historical event. And he does a good job of it.

In Chapter 5, "The 'Second Generation': The Vicarious Witnesses," Sicher's concern lies with the novels written by children of Holocaust survivors. He opens this chapter with a consideration of exactly who constitutes the "second generation." He follows this introduction with an excellent description of novels that cut across national boundaries, including those by M. J. Bukiet, Thane Rosenbaum, Art Spiegelman, David Grossman, Henri Raczymow, Myriam Anissimov, Patrick Modiano, Carl Friedman, and others. He ends his discussion of second-generation novels with an insightful exploration of the question of where and how the second generation might lead a third generation of Holocaust novelists.

Finally, in Chapter 6, "Postmodern 'holocausts,'" Sicher turns his attention to yet another category of Holocaust novels, namely the postmodern Holocaust [End Page 209] novel. In this chapter we have one of the unique aspects of Sicher's study; it is what makes Sicher's study truly important to today's student of the Holocaust novel. In this chapter, after considering what the term postmodern means when applied to the Holocaust novel, he takes a detailed look at several postmodern Holocaust novelists. Among these are Don DeLillo, Martin Amis, Emily Prager, Anne Michaels, Raymond Federman, Ian McEwan, and others.

In The Holocaust Novel Sicher does an...

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